Ralph-

I didn't know what to think when I woke up alone in a jungle. I remembered that the plane I was in was flying over water when we crashed so the jungle must be on an island. I also knew that I wasn't alone on the island. There must be other boys. I started to make my way through the creepers and as I was walking I heard someone call out to me. It was a plump boy with glasses named Piggy. He was out of breath but he said that was from his ass-mar. We made our way through the jungle and came out to a beach that extended both ways until it converged with the waves. On the beach I found a big conch shell.

Piggy told me you could blow into it and make a loud noise. After a couple tries, I was successful. It was a great booming sound that must have been heard for miles. Slowly, boys started appearing from the forest. A group of choir boys led by a boy named Jack Merridew appeared.  

After all the boys had gathered, we voted for a Chief. The choir boys voted for Jack but I won the vote. After that, Jack, a choir boy named Simon, and I went to explore the land. On our journey, we climbed to the top of a mountain and confirmed that we were on an island. On our way back to the beach, we found a wild pig and tried to catch it but it got away.

When we got back to camp, I sounded the conch and told the group that we were alone on the island. I then made the rule that you could only talk if you were holding the conch. Then Piggy told us how nobody knew that we had crashed on the island. He said that we might be stuck on the island for a long time. While the group comprehended that, a boy who had a mulberry-colored birthmark stepped forward. He told us about a snakelike "beastie". This made the group quite down a little. Jack said that he was dreaming and was a cry baby.

The next day I had the idea of making a signal fire. We made it on the top of the mountain with dead wood. We used Piggy's specs to light the wood with the sun. Jack said his group would keep the fire going. They caught the forest on fire and Piggy said that the boy with the mulberry-colored birthmark played by the fire and that he is missing now. Just knowing that that happened while I was in charge made me angry at myself.

The next day, Jack went hunting with his makeshift spear. When he got back to came empty handed, Simon and I were working on the huts. I asked Jack to help but al he cared about was catching a pig. I told him that he should've caught a pig with all the time he has been working. He argued that his hunter will soon be successful. I knew that Jack and the hunters were using their hunting as an excuse to not work but I knew that there wasn't much I could do.

Life on the island became just like life at home. There was a daily routine of playing in the morning's cool air and sweet smells. The afternoon brought fading light and nightmares about the "beastie". I was working on the huts with Simon when I saw it. A spec of smoke staking up on the horizon. Then I realized that it was a ship. I looked up at the mountain and was crestfallen when I saw no signal fire. I ran up the hill with piggy behind me but by the time we got to the abandoned fire pit it was to late. Through investigation it turned out that Jack became even more obsessed with hunting a pig that he painted his face with charcoal and clay. He left his post at the fire pit to go into the jungle to hunt with some other choir boys. When they returned I was furious with the fact that that could have been our only chance for rescue. It had been their job to keep the fire going and they had failed. They did return with a pig that they caught, but it wasn't enough to lighten my anger. At that I called a meeting and walked back to the beach. 

At the meeting that night, I told the group how they had failed to follow the rules. They had even neglected to use the designated toilet area. I told them the importance of a signal fire and that it was the difference in being rescued and being dead. I also stressed the importance of building shelters. When I was done I let one of the littluns have the conch. He talked about a nightmare he had. I told him that there was no beast on the island. Then one of the littluns said that he had seen the beast. He said that it might come from the water. This thought terrified the group but Jack told them that he would hunt it down. With that people wandered to their huts for another night of nightmares. 

I was woken up in the early hours of the morning by the twins Eric and Sam. They said that they had seen the beast on the mountain. I called for a meeting at which twins recalled their experiences. We sent out an expedition to hunt down the monster. I allowed Jack to lead the expedition and we headed out with our wooden spears. We came to a small walkway across to a ledge. I was the first over and was slowly followed by the rest of the group. They started to forget why they were on the quest. They started to talk about building forts in the cave but I reminded them that we were looking for the beast.

Grendel's Mother Perspective

Man, I really hate Beowulf. Of course, I don't really like most people but I really just want to rip his arm off. He had to be the big hero and get himself involved into my son's life and end it. I have to say, it was quite a shock to me when Grendel came home from one of his outings and was missing an arm. Obviously, I had to find out who did this to my little baby Grendel. I remember when he was first born. He was the sweetest thing I had ever seen. For some reason, the men at Heorot did not think this way, though. They saw my son as an ugly flesh eating monster. Can you believe it? Okay, this was maybe partially true. But he became like that after one of Hogarth's men attacked him. Those mortals always see things in black and white. My son attacked them only in self defense. They were never very nice to Grendel, so he would go on hunts every night to give them a taste of their own medicine. I didn't really care about the killings. I though it was nice he was getting out of the house. And if the men had a problem with my son's visits, why didn't they come and talk to me once during the past 12 years? But let me get back to that fiend that goes by the name Beowulf. He thought it was a good idea to shut my son in a door. I can't even imagine the pain poor Grendel felt at that moment, and it draws tears to my eyes just to think about it. It's for that reason that I will kill him when he seeks my demise. I will avenge my son and end Beowulf's reign of terror.

~Grendel's Mother.

The Son of Neptune

I recently read the second book in The Heroes of Olympus series, The Son of Neptune. It is about a boy named Percy who's dad is Poseidon, god of the sea. He is not the only one in this situation. He is part of a group of kids called demigods, who have one mortal parent, and one godly parent. They live at one of two camps depending on whether they are Roman or Greek: Camp Jupiter (Roman) and Camp Half-Blood (Greek).

The story starts with Percy waking up and having no memory. He is in California and is being chased by the Gorgon sisters.
Percy stumbles upon a tunnel in a mountain guarded by a boy and a girl, Frank and Hazel. They shoot arrows at the Gorgons and save Percy. They take Percy to Reyna, the leader of Camp Jupiter. She tells them to take him to the "augur" (or prophet) of Camp, Octavian, who says Percy can join the camp. At dinner he is accepted into the 5th cohort with Frank and Hazel.

That night at the camp's war games, Percy helps his cohort win for the first time. Ares, the god of war, comes to the camp and claims Frank as his son. He says Frank, Hazel, and Percy must go on a quest to free Thanatos, the god of the dead, so they can stop Gaea and the Giant's army. They must go north to Alaska where Thanatos is being held and where the gods have no influence. To being their journey, the group takes a boat to Portland. There, they stop to see a blind seer named Phineas who knows where Thanatos is being held prisoner. But, the only way Phineas would tell them the location is with a gamble.

Percy had with him two vials of Gorgon blood. One vial contained blood from the right side of a Gorgon's body, that can cure all injuries. The other vial contained blood from the left, that will kill you instantly. Percy, Frank and Hazel have Phineas write the location of where Thanatos was being held on a piece of paper, and then he and Percy drink at the same time. Luckily, Percy got the vial from the right side and lived. This also meant he would slowly regain his memory. On the paper were written the words "HUBBARD GLACIER."

After finding out the location, they were off again. They take their boat to Seattle to get the help of the Amazons. These are a group of warrior women, who also run Amazon.com (no, seriously). Their leader is the sister of Reyna. The group gets a horse named Arion, who can run faster than sound, and a chariot, because the horse could only hold one person. They speed north across Puget Sound and eventually into Vancouver. Luckily, by the time the chariot's wheels break off, Frank knows where they were. He leads them to his grandmother's mansion. They stay the night and get fresh clothes and food. The next day they take a luxury Gulfstream, chartered by Frank's grandmother, to Anchorage, Alaska.

In Anchorage, Percy, Frank and Hazel found a nice diner, where they order eggs, pancakes, and reindeer sausage. They take a train to the closest town to the glacier, Seward. Hazel is very familiar with the town. She brings them to her old house where they rest. Arion has run to Alaska on his own, and when he and the group find one another, he takes them to Hubbard Glacier. While Frank is melting the icy chains that hold Thanatos, Percy and Hazel fight off an army of ghosts and a cyclops. They ride Arion back to camp just in time to join the battle against Gaea's army of monsters. Percy defeats the giant Polybotes and they win the war. Percy gets news that his old friends from camp Half-Blood are arriving in a flying warship. He is eager to be reunited with his old friends.

Once again, Rick Riordan has written a very exciting and entertaining book. It does a great job picking up where the first book, The Lost Hero, left off. And it ends leaving the reader eagerly anticipating the next book in the series. In this volume, the characters were very life-like and easy to relate to. The story was thrilling, yet in places was quite funny. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys actions stories, especially if they are a fan of Classical mythology.

The Son of Neptune parallels the stories in The Odyssey in many ways. The heroic journey is a central part of The Odyssey, and in The Son of Neptune, Percy is on a journey that requires him to be heroic. Both Percy and the hero in The Odyssey, Odysseus, are trying to get back to people they love. In both stories, Greek and Roman gods are present. And in both books, the heroes must fight various terrible monsters. There are differences, though. For example, in  The Odyssey there was just one main character, Odysseus, and he was the only character to have supernatural powers. In The Son of Neptune, while Percy is the main character, there are other very important characters, as well, and nearly all demigods have supernatural powers. In general, though, The Son of Neptune, is a very good example of a modern book that uses themes and stories that have been used for many centuries, including in The Odyssey.

My Siren

In the Odyssey, the Sirens were beautiful women who are half human, half bird. They lived on the island of Sirenum Scopuli, and would sing to passing ships so the ships would crash on the rocks on the island. This expresses something that looks, or sounds, beautiful but has bad consequences.

I would think of myself as an example of a modern day siren. Yes I'm a siren to myself. I try to convince myself that certain actions won't affect me, but of course I am wrong.

One example would be, when I was in 5th grade, and this amazing new game console called the Wii came out. It wasn't like any other console. You couldn't just sit on the couch to play. You had to be standing up, wireless controller in hand, and be moving around to win. Who has ever heard of playing tennis in your living room?

  
Obviously I was hooked on getting my little, 9 year old hands on one of these console contraptions. As luck would have it my birthday was approaching. All I had to do was relay the message to my parents. Now, this was a very delicate task. One false move and it was over. I cleverly slipped a magazine with an ad about the Wii in it into my parents room. They took the bait! All I had to do was wait. (Admittedly, I stole this idea form the movie A Christmas Story).

One day my mom came home with a suspicious looking package the shape of a cube. She was trying quite hard to bring it into the house without anybody seeing. Of course, I picked up this awkward behavior like a hawk. I decided to do some detective work. In a chest in our attic, there was a Trader Joe's paper bag with a white box in it. I knew what the box had in it before I even read the side panel. A Wii! I was so excited I could hardly contain myself! When the day of the party came, I knew my days of torture were over. I could finally play my Wii!

Though I had many fun times with that Wii, sadly, it now ceases to amuse me. I could have been playing real tennis at the park rather than being inside all day. This is not the only case of these sad stories. There is one up side though. At least I'm not alone. :) 

A long Journey

I guess I never really thought about what it would be like to be Odysseus. Just think about it. Twenty years ago your first son was just born and boom, you get drafted into the army. You get stranded on an island on your way back from the war and the island happens to be inhabited by flesh eating Cyclopses! Your only chance of survival is by keeping a cool head and outsmarting the enemy.

I recently watch a movie that reminded me of this story. Its called War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise. It is the story of a single father trying to get his children to Boston where they will be safe from the alien invaders. Throughout the movie he has to think of his kids lives before his. For instance, when an alien ship picks his daughter up, he lets it pick him up too so he can save her. This is like when Odysseus is trying to escape the cyclopes cave and put his life on the line to try and save his men.

Two men from two different time period, with the same long journey, who are both heroes. Joseph Campbell was right when he said that almost all myths have the same basic ideas. The ideas from hundreds of years ago still interest people in this modern world. The ideas of love, war, family, and persevering to get back home are for in both stories, The War of the Worlds and The Odyssey.   

Another similarity is in the Ancient Greece story of the Trojan horse being too good to be true for the Trojans. There are multiple cases in The War of the Worlds that are examples of something being to good to be true. In one scene, people are scrambling to get on a ferry that will take them to safety. This was true until one of the alien ships is seen under the boat. The people who didn't make it on the ferry were safe while those on the ferry were in peril. Another scene shows how no cars are working because of a freak electrical storm. All the cars except for Tom Cruise’s. This seems good until they almost lose their lives trying to keep the car from the prying hands of all the other refugees. One man holds them at gun point to get the car, and then he becomes the victim of the crowd.

This relationship has helped open my eyes to the possibilities of more everyday stories having similarities to these epics. It will be fun to find out how they link together.

First Post

Last week we learned about creation. I though it was fun to learn about the old Greek myths like Pandora's Box. Im into that stuff :) My favorite part was when we created our own stories of creation. I also enjoyed eating swedish fish! My least favorite part was when we had to take the tests on the computers. It was too long. I have a feeling this will be a fun year :)